When They Say Jump
by pollyglyph
Summary: Kalifa has never had a boss like Iceburg before.


_**I've really been wanting to write a fic about Kalifa and Iceburg and their working relationship and friendship, so here it is.**_

* * *

Behind his office door, the noise of reporters was nearly deafening. Sat propped against a door each, they did their best to keep bracing them closed behind them.

"They really are quite persistent, these people aren't they?" Kalifa complains, pushing up her glasses.

"The way I see it, there's really only two ways to deal with this," Iceburg replies.

"And they would be?"

"Either we stay in here forever, or we just go out and deal with it."

"And have them take more photos?" she protests. "I think we've both had quite enough of all that."

She shakes her head and frowns.

"I didn't realise when I signed up for this job that this was what I was signing up for."

"Sorry Kalifa," Iceburg replies.

He looks over at her with sympathy and she does her best to try to let everything slide off her, just as she's always had to. Like water off a duck's back.

"No, it's alright," she says. "But still. It would be nice to get a bit more respect from them."

She glances at her nails, and there's a chip in her polish from forcing the door. She'll have to go and get those re-done.

"A women in a man's work place rarely does…" she says.

There's a thud against the door and it makes them both jump a little.

"Honestly, why do they think there's something going on between us anyway?" she asks.

"It's maybe not that they really think so, more that they just want a hot new scandal to sell to the people," Iceburg says cynically. "_The mayor and his secretary_. I don't really know why this kind of thing gets blown up so much, wish fulfilment maybe. People seem to love elicit drama."

"It's sexual harassment," she spits.

"It is," Iceburg replies.

"This is silly, I'm not even interested in men," she states.

"Oh, really?" Iceburg laughs. "Isn't that funny."

"What? Why?"

"I'm gay too."

Kalifa looks over at him.

"Really? You should have said something sooner."

"Why's that?"

"I'm a lot more comfortable around gay men," Kalifa explains. "I don't feel like they're constantly looking at me like an object or a fantasy."

"Ah, well, rest assured my feelings towards you will stay strictly professional," Iceburg smiles at her.

"I have to say, that's quite a relief," Kalifa sighs. "I feel like I can relax a lot more around you now just knowing that."

She closes her eyes and all the tension rolls away. She smiles a little.

"I can't believe you're gay too," she laughs. "If they only knew."

Kalifa glances over to him.

"_Oh Iceburg!_" she jokes.

She makes her voice go as high and damsel-like as she can manage.

"_I want to do my paperwork but I just can't keep my hands off you sir_," she mocks.

"_Kalifa_," he joins in. "_You're so sexy I can't possibly work while you're around, I'll get too distracted_. Can you imagine?" he laughs.

"I know," Kalifa remarks. "Straight people, how do they ever get anything done?"

"Who knows…"

"If you don't mind me asking sir, when did you know?"

"I was quite young," he said. "I never did have feelings for women, but I did for men, so it wasn't very difficult to work it out."

"That's quite lucky. I even dated a man once, before I realised," she admitted coolly. "Never again."

She tries her best to block those memories out.

"Men are animals," she states.

She glances his way.

"Sorry," she corrects. "_Straight_ men are animals."

"That's alright, a lot of them are. Even some of the gay ones," Iceburg replies.

There wasn't many men she met that would admit that.

"I'm glad we had this chance to talk," she replies. "I'm glad my new boss turned out to be someone like you."

She glances awkwardly down at her boots and clicks her heels together.

"I've had some awful bosses," she admits.

"I'm sorry to hear that Kalifa," he replies softly. "Hmm, someone that would abuse a position of power doesn't ever deserve to have it."

She keeps on looking at her new boots. Part of her new uniform, for her new, though still fake, life. But things will be different here.

"They certainly don't," she says.

* * *

Sometimes she makes the tea, and sometimes Iceburg makes her tea, and when they sit for a break, they talk about their past loves or passing crushes to fill the time. She feels so comfortable around him just talking, sharing her thoughts about the feelings she's had over the years for all the women that got away and the odd one now and then who didn't.

"We should both go to the gay bar together sometime," she says. "And if there's anyone either of us likes, we can vouch for each other."

Iceburg hesitates.

"It's not that I'm in the closet," Iceburg starts. "But since I became the mayor I haven't really been on the scene so to speak."

"I was just joking," Kalifa quickly adds with a forced laugh. "Of course I was. Of course you don't have time for that sort of thing."

She drinks her tea.

"Doesn't that get lonely though?" she asks.

"From time to time," Iceburg says. "Because I'm so busy with work, it would get complicated trying to maintain a relationship."

He shrugs.

"But I'm so busy it's hard to even have time to feel lonely really."

She watches as he reaches and scratches his mouse on the head. That silly mouse he'd picked up, she realises, because he was so lonely and so starved for affection that petting the dirty little beast now and then would just have to do for him.

Kalifa's heart breaks for him a little.

* * *

The night he's shot, it's not hard for Kalifa to put on a good performance of the distraught secretary. Even though she knew it would happen, seeing him there, lying unconscious, hooked to a drip with that silly mouse of his worrying by him on his bed, the tears that come to her eyes are real.

The only boss she's ever had that was friendly and kind to her and treated her like she was a human too, and now she has to help murder him for a cruel boss that she's seen beat women bloody in the false name of justice.

There was no justice.


End file.
